Stevie's feet hit the ground and she sank into a crouch, the shock of impact vibrating her whole body. Moments later, Wanda touched down lightly beside her, gravel crunching under her black boots.
They had dropped out of a quinjet into Baron Strucker's fortress - a Sokovian castle that had once belonged to some distant ancestor, now serving as the center of a nascent Hydra fiefdom. Against the green-forested slope, the castle rose in five sturdy levels. They had landed in the bailey of the final and largest building, a thick-walled gravel courtyard like a huge gray box. The air was heavy with the promise of a storm.
"Do you have a bead on Strucker?" Stevie asked.
"Yes," Wanda said, staring off at the mountain that loomed above the castle's blocky turrets. "The Winter Soldier is with him. They're definitely fleeing. Just like you thought."
"That's what Hydra bosses do," Stevie replied. "When the going gets tough, they get gone."
When Insight had fallen, Strucker had fled to his hereditary stronghold, but not to hide. He saw himself as the leader of Hydra's rebirth. In that role, he'd been drawing former agents to him, gathering weapons - and one special weapon in particular. The Winter Soldier.
Seven Months Ago
Hydra had been defeated, Insight neutralized - but her situation wasn't much simpler than before. Bucky was alive and free. Fury was dead. Maria Hill was missing. Natasha had disappeared to take care of unfinished business. And within minutes of Stevie waking up in the hospital, Sergeant Sam Wilson had come to place her into government custody "for her own protection."
Former Air Force Pararescue, Sergeant Wilson now worked for General Thaddeus Ross, who had stepped into the void left by Fury, Maria Hill, and SHIELD. In her cynical moments, Stevie suspected Ross was using this opportunity to rehabilitate his own career after how disastrously he'd mishandled the Hulk situation in 2006. His mandate was to restore both national security and public faith - after what had basically been an attempted coup. Captain America's role in his plans seemed to be part commando leader part figurehead.
So - the usual.
Together, Stevie and Tony had managed to talk Ross down from his "protective custody" idea - provided they took Sergeant Wilson with them as a "government liaison" while they got to work picking up the pieces SHIELD had left behind.
Stevie began by reading through the files Natasha had forcibly declassified, the files that charted SHIELD's infiltration by Hydra. There was certainly a lot of useful information for anyone who had the time to look for it, but she wasn't hunting secret bases, high-tech weaponry, or high-profile double agents. She was looking for one man.
Bucky Barnes.
The sounds of explosions and gunfire came up the mountainside from the castle's front gate, where Sam and Pietro would be leading the frontal assault. Hydra agents ran past shouting to each other, weapons drawn. Thanks to Wanda's abilities, the soldiers split around them, ignoring them as if they were pieces of statuary.
A metallic smell filled in the air, and a gentle rain began to fall. A few drops darkened the gravel, then, suddenly, they were standing in a downpour. Wanda made a noise of dismay and held up her hands to try to protect herself. Despite being able to fly, she couldn't seem to shield herself from the rain. Maybe that would come in time. After all, she hadn't been able to fly six months ago.
"You'd feel better if you'd worn a real jacket," Stevie said flatly. "Or some pants."
Wanda was wearing one of her usual outfits - a black dress over shorts and a red bolero. The rain had already soaked them through.
"Army fatigues with a flag stamped on them?" Wanda asked with a smile.
Stevie shrugged. "It's always worked for me."
Tramping through Europe in all sorts of weather had taught her that it was pointless to fight the rain, so she let it wash over her, darkening her blonde braid and sticking the escaped strands to her face.
Their mole inside the castle had sketched a rough map of the tunnels that pierced the mountain, of a secret path that led out the other tunnel entry was close, through a small servant's corridor in the castle itself. Stevie pulled her shield from the sling on her back and began to jog across the bailey, but Wanda called her back.
"Wait, hold on." She frowned, focusing within, sensing something with her powers. "There's something else…"
A call came in over Stevie's headset. It was Sam.
"Captain, we've got a problem."
"What is it?" Stevie said.
"The Winter Soldier is here. He's mixing it up with Pietro. We could use some help."
She could hear gunshots behind his voice, and screams.
"There are two," Wanda said, cutting through Stevie's confusion. "Two Winter Soldiers."
Seven Months Ago
Stevie would read the files late at night, after Maggie was asleep in her crib. Maybe it was her imagination, but after her daughter's latest burst of growth, Stevie could see Bucky in her. Something about the dimple in her chin, the pugnacious set of her jaw when she wanted something. Her hair was growing longer, straighter, even darker than it had been before. It fanned out around her head as she snored softly, chubby toddler hands held up by her face.
The files had all the information on the making of the first Winter Soldier - the raw material for which had been Bucky. Maggie's father. Stevie's…friend? Boyfriend? Lover? No term seemed appropriate. Beloved, maybe. The scanned, grainy documents described the process in impartial and clinical terms. Excisions. Injections. Electroconvulsion. Psychological manipulation. Personality erasure. Rate of compliance.
All that time, while she had mourned. While she had slept in the ice. While she had learned to live in a new world. All that time - he had been there. Right there! While she had been writing letters to his ghost in her journal, thinking he was dead.
After her reading, Stevie would stare out of the windows of her apartment, at the cars driving below. Their little lights, red and white, rendered reassuringly small by distance. All those people, going peacefully to and fro.
It was from those files that she had learned there were other Winter Soldiers.
In retrospect, she really should have guessed. People had been trying to replicate the process that created her for years. Surely Hydra - not known for their ethical hang ups - would do whatever they could to make copies of their most successful agent?
She had thought that, by following the tracks of the other Winter Soldiers, she might find the one she was looking for. But instead, they had led her to Strucker, and the castle.
Stevie ran down a rough-hewn tunnel into the mountain, trying to strike a balance between speed and stealth. She had sent Wanda to support the team at the front gates, so she ran alone, accompanied only by the echoes of her footsteps. Her uniform was clammy and damp against her skin, drying unevenly in the stale air.
The tunnel was braced with heavy, wooden beams. Overhead, yellowish bulbs hung at ten-foot intervals, creating pools of sallow light, casting the craggy walls in shadow. At every turn in the path she paused for a moment, holding her breath to listen for someone coming back to intercept her. If Strucker heard her, he would send his pet Winter Soldier after her.
The path ended at a T-junction, and Stevie turned left.
She found herself at the beginning of a long passage, a metal door at the end. The door that would lead to the other side of the mountain. Between Stevie and the door, Strucker stood in a slate gray suit, bald scalp gleaming in the wan lamplight. Another man was next to him, tall, with a hard face and dark, lifeless eyes. His Winter Soldier.
Stevie was on the point of deciding whether to charge or duck back around the corner, when she saw something move. In a pocket of shadow, behind one of the bracing beams, there was someone else. Someone raising a gun in a shining silver hand.
Her heart lurched in her chest.
"Bucky," she whispered, like his name had been pulled directly out of her heart.
He heard.
He turned toward her, familiar profile outlined against the light. He had several days growth of stubble, more than the last time she'd seen him, a dark shadow along his jaw. His eyes widened with surprise. In that moment, Strucker's Winter Soldier saw them. Without hesitation, he raised a weapon to his shoulder, something with a thick, tubular barrel.
"Grenade!"
Stevie was already in motion as she shouted the warning. In two long strides, she closed the distance between them, raising her shield just in time for the grenade to skate off its curved surface. It hit the tunnel's wood-braced ceiling behind them, and she tensed, expecting a spray of hot shrapnel against the shield. The missile exploded with an annihilating blast of sound and light that threw Stevie off her feet.
The blast erased thought and overloaded her senses. She came to herself lying against the stone wall, black and silver spots swarming over her vision. Dust was thick on her tongue, the taste of wet earth. Knowing the Soldier would be on her in a moment, she struggled to push herself up. Someone might have been shouting, but she couldn't hear more than a buzz. It was hard to rise, because everything was swaying, but she managed to push herself into a crouch - just in time for the Soldier to kick her in the face.
Once again, the tunnel came apart into spots of light. Stevie found herself on her hands and knees on the floor, blood dripping onto the stone. Suddenly, Bucky lunged out of the dust and smoke, driving his metal shoulder into the Soldier's stomach to force him back. As the two men grappled, Stevie pulled herself desperately to her feet. The Soldier threw Bucky into the tunnel wall, and his head hit the stone hard. As he staggered, stunned, the Soldier pulled a gun from his shoulder holster.
Stevie chopped the shield down on the Soldier's arm, edge first, and saw the bone snap. The man grunted, more in surprise than pain, and Bucky seized him from behind, trying to use his metal arm in an unbreakable chokehold. The Soldier didn't even try to break his grip. Instead he produced a black rod from a holster on his thigh. Even as his face purpled from lack of air, he stabbed the rod into Bucky's leg.
Her ears still ringing, Stevie couldn't hear Bucky scream, but she saw it. Both men convulsed as blue-white energy crackled over them, and Bucky fell to the floor, twitching. The Soldier shook himself, then turned to Stevie, left arm raised to strike. She couldn't block him fast enough with the shield on her own left side, so she caught the rod in her right hand.
A bolt of white pain seized her, and she screamed, but refused to let go. Gritting her teeth, fighting against her own body as it spasmed, she clenched her fist around the rod. She struggled to raise her shield, but it was all she could do just to hold on, to stay upright. When she felt like her eyes might burst, the Soldier dropped to the floor. Bucky stood behind him, chest heaving. He had hit him from behind.
Stevie leaned over, hands on her knees, trembling. Her stomach lurched and she swallowed heavily, afraid she might throw up. After a minute of deep breathing, her muscles felt less like jelly and she was able to stand up. The ringing in her ears had subsided to a faint hiss, like the sound inside a seashell. Bucky was standing close by, eyes fixed on her. For a moment, she lost herself in those eyes before remembering abruptly that she was here for her mission - for Strucker. She looked up the corridor. The tunnel was blocked with rubble. The wooden beam bracing the ceiling had broken, and the earth above had collapsed from the blast. She looked down the corridor. The metal door was shut. Strucker was gone.
"Damn," she said, still breathless. "Well, at least we have the Winter…"
Bucky picked up the man's pistol from where he'd dropped it and shot him - three times in the chest, twice in the head.
"Jesus!" Stevie exclaimed. "Bucky! For God's sake - we could have taken him into custody, we could have…"
"He'd never have talked," Bucky said. He put the pistol back down on the stone floor, moving carefully and he bent and straightened again, probably sore from the fight. Stevie knew she was.
As she watched him, she remembered some of her late-night studies, grainy video clips. They'd used Bucky to train the other Winter Soldiers. He had known this man. She swallowed and tasted blood.
Bucky looked back up at her. He was thinner than he had been, cheekbones sharper. His hair hung lank and ragged around his face, and there were bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes, as though he hadn't been sleeping. The last time Stevie had seen him, he had shot her. The bullet had gone through her right kidney, Doctor Rao had told her, and she'd nearly bled to death.
Stevie's hand went to her stomach involuntarily, where the wound had healed without a scar. Bucky's eyes followed the gesture, and then looked away.
For six months, Stevie had been looking for him, but every tantalizing trace had turned into a dead end. Sometimes literally, since he'd been hunting the same Hydra operatives that she had. But now - now that she was on a mission with no expectation to find him - now he had turned up. She had imagined their meeting during the past six months, played it out in her head over and over, but now she found that she had no idea what to do, what to say. Where were you? Why did you run?
I've missed you.
What she wanted to do was to take a step towards him and cup his cheek in her hand. Lean her forehead against his. Breathe in his breath. Reassure herself that he was real. Her whole body ached with that want, but she was afraid if she made the smallest move, he'd bolt like a frightened animal.
Finally, he spoke.
"Are you alright?"
Stevie touched the side of her face, wincing. Her hand came away red.
"Yeah," she said. It felt like her left eye was starting to swell shut, but she didn't think her nose was broken. "You?"
Bucky coughed in reply.
The flash-bang really had collapsed the tunnel behind them. The two of them prodded at the rubble a bit, and agreed that even they couldn't dig their way out. Stevie attempted to call Sam, or Pietro, to let them know Strucker was in the wind, but under all this rock, all she got was a hiss.
"Guess we're going out the other way," she said. Don't run. Don't leave.
Bucky nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead. The door wasn't far away, but they hadn't reached it when Bucky stumbled, hand against the wall to steady himself.
"Bucky?"
He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge something.
"Are you hurt?"
"No," he said. "Not hurt."
He pushed himself off the wall and took a few shaky steps before slumping back against the stone, gasping. As Stevie watched, he slid slowly down the wall to sit on the ground. She dropped her shield and crouched in front of him. Even in the tunnel's yellow light, she could tell his skin was too pale.
"Bucky," she repeated, louder this time, as if she could call him back from whatever was happening to him.
"Sorry," he mumbled. His eyes looked glazed and feverish. "I'm sorry."
He took her hand weakly in his own - the right hand. His human hand.
"It was good," he said. "To see you again."
"What? What do you mean?"
But Bucky wasn't listening. His eyes rolled back and he went limp against the wall, his chin falling onto his chest, like some discarded doll.
"Bucky? Bucky!"
Stevie lowered him gently to the ground and started searching him for injuries. She checked his head, which flopped on his neck with an alarming looseness. There was a little blood at the back of his skull from hitting the tunnel wall, but no fracture. There were no broken ribs, but his shirt was black, which could have hidden any bleeding. She ran her hands down his abdomen but couldn't find any wounds. Under her hands, his skin burned feverishly. Could he be sick? Poisoned? She'd seen some of the things he'd survived - some of the "tests" Hydra's butchers had subjected him to. What on earth could lay Bucky out like this?
She crouched in the corridor and listened to her own harsh breathing. Her hands were resting on Bucky's chest, feeling it rise and fall. Was his breath coming more shallowly? Or was she imagining it? She realized her hands were shaking.
Do something. You have to do something.
She heaved Bucky over her shoulder and ran to the tunnel exit, kicking the door open. Outside, the rain had decreased to a spotty drizzle. There was a dry patch on the gravel tarmac, just starting to dampen, big enough for one large automobile. Strucker's getaway car. A switchbacked mountain road disappeared into the trees below.
There wasn't space in Stevie's mind to care that the objective of her mission had been lost. She laid Bucky down on the ground. His body was limp and inert, a sack of disconnected bones. Drops of rain were falling directly on his face, but he didn't react at all. She felt his pulse with a shaking hand to make sure he was still alive. It was faint, but it was there.
She activated her communicator.
"I need help," she said, her own voice sounding tight and strange. "Strucker's gone. The Winter Soldier's dead….I have…there's an injured man here."
It was Pietro who answered.
"No problem, Captain. We're just cleaning up. I'll be there…"
A gust of wind swirled raindrops into her face.
"Before you know it!"
Pietro stood before her, silver hair dark with rain, spreading his arms like a showman. Then he saw the man on the ground and his eyes widened in shock.
"Holy shit!" He breathed. "That's…"
Stevie interrupted him before he could finish the sentence.
"Sergeant James Barnes."